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Sept. 19, 2004
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COMMENTARY

Sunday, September 19, 2004

The Iraq factor
Will evidence that the situation on the ground is deteriorating affect the election? Stay tuned.


Columnist, The Orange County Register

Perhaps it should not be surprising that the overarching issue in the presidential campaign, the 800-pound gorilla lurking behind every campaign appearance, is getting little real attention from either major-party candidate and little serious coverage in the media.

I am talking, of course, about the progress - or lack thereof - in the war in Iraq.

Political campaigns are more often driven by polls than by the real problems that face the country, and the differences between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry on how to handle the apparently serious deterioration in Iraq sound more stylistic than substantive. Moreover, this election is likely to hinge more on perceptions in 15 "battleground" states than on attitudes captured in national polls.

So it's unclear in what way Iraq could emerge as a significant election issue. Until now, President Bush, especially since the Republican convention, outpolls Kerry on most issues related to the war, such as the capacity to serve as a wartime leader.

But if things get significantly worse in Iraq in a way that captures public attention in the next few weeks, it could hurt the president. Or it could have a don't-change-horses effect and bolster his support. It all depends, as they say in the military, on the situation and the terrain.

IT'S TOUGH ASSESSING

THE WAR ON THE GROUND

The problem with trying to assess the impact of Iraq on the presidential campaign is that it is almost impossible for most voters to assess the situation objectively. Media reports, even including interviews with Iraqi citizens rather than the expected heavy coverage of battles, bombings and deaths, by their very nature tend to be anecdotal rather than systematic.

Official government reports tend to put the best face on things, stressing measurable signs of progress like schools rebuilt, hospitals reopened and the like.

The Wall Street Journal's opinion page, a reliable supporter of the war from the beginning, last Monday ran a long article by Australian blogger Arthur Chrenkoff highlighting "some of the stories you probably didn't hear" over the past two weeks that reflect progress. And it is undoubtedly true that an Iraqi commission is making progress toward holding elections in January, that there has been a marriage boom in Iraq, reflecting some optimism, that the postal service has been improved, that the Baghdad stock exchange is due for a technological renovation, that increasing amounts of foreign humanitarian aid are coming in, and that public support for the insurgency is waning.

But these numerically measurable "input" factors may or may not have a genuine positive impact on ordinary Iraqis.

And they may be of little real significance if security is so shaky that most Iraqis don't feel safe leaving their homes, or if Iraqis themselves don't perceive that progress is being made.

From a security perspective, last week was not good news, at least as reflected in stories that made headlines. Last Sunday featured some of the fiercest fighting in months in the capital of Baghdad, with 13 people killed (including a Palestinian reporter working for Saudi TV who was killed on camera, groaning, "I'm going to die, I'm going to die") and at least 60 wounded in one incident, and 100 more killed in other battles.

On Monday U.S. fighter planes targeted Fallujah, killing 20 and wounding 40. More foreigners have been kidnapped and a videotape was released of a Turkish truck driver having his throat cut. On Wednesday a car bomb outside a police station in Baghdad killed 59 and wounded more than 100 people. Fifteen Americans were killed in a week.

On Thursday came news of three decapitated bodies found near Baghdad, along with leaks about a classified National Intelligence Estimate from the National Intelligence Council that takes a generally pessimistic tone, with the worst-case scenario of civil war by the end of 2005.

Last week's Newsweek magazine tries to offer a little perspective. "The Defense Department counted 87 attacks per day on U.S. forces in August - the worst monthly average since Bush's flight-suited visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003."

The attacks are coming across a wider area of Iraq and increasing numbers of U.S. personnel are suffering gunshot wounds, suggesting they are facing armed and organized groups of insurgents rather than the occasional lone saboteur. All this suggests that the organized insurgency against U.S. occupation is increasing alarmingly and dramatically.

American - and to some extent Iraqi government - forces face the classic dilemma. Given the technological and tactical superiority of American forces, they could probably inflict a military defeat on Muqtada al-Sadr's militia forces and other insurgents. But a "scorched-earth" campaign that inflicts many deaths will almost certainly create more resentment and more, perhaps even more determined, insurgents.

THINK TANK MEASURES

WHAT IRAQIS ARE THINKING

The most comprehensive effort I have seen to assess progress in Iraq in a relatively systematic way (aside from a good piece by James Fallows in the October Atlantic magazine) comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a fairly establishment nonpartisan think tank (former Sen. Sam Nunn chairs the advisory committee) that started a Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project when the war began.

The data in the report, "Progress or Peril? Measuring Iraq's Reconstruction" (www.csis.org/isp/pcr/ 0409_progressperil.pdf), were collected from several sources: media (15 primary sources, 40 secondary), public sources (17, including official groups like the Coalition Provisional Authority, AID, Central Command and UN agencies), public opinion polls of Iraqis conducted by 16 different outfits and the center's own interviews conducted by seven trained Iraqis in 15 different cities.

All these data were directed at answering five different questions from the perspective of ordinary Iraqis. These had to do with security ("I feel secure in my home and in my daily activities"); governance and participation ("I have a say in how Iraq is run"); economic opportunity ("I have a means of income"); services ("I have access to basic services, such as power, water and sanitation"); and social well-being ("My family and I have access to health care and education").

Each of these questions was rated on a five-point scale from -50 (e.g., "I have no income" for economic opportunity) to +50 ("My income exceeds my basic needs"). For Iraq to be headed in the right direction - i.e., capable of being self-sustaining, the Center for Strategic and International Studies figured all five questions would have to be in the positive zone.

What they found was that all five questions, taken cumulatively from June 2003 through July 2004, were still in negative zones. Security was in the "danger zone" on the four-part quadrant, while economic opportunity and services were on the cusp between danger and the "gray zone." Governance and participation and social well-being were in the gray zone, withsocial well-being almost into the "viable zone." On none of the questions was there "a sustained trajectory toward the tipping point or end state."

At the same time, however, the report says Iraqis are still patient and, after Saddam, don't have unrealistically high expectations. By and large they approve of their new security and police forces and believe that with its oil resources Iraq's long-term future still looks positive.

SECURITY REMAINS

THE PREDOMINANT ISSUE

But, as the report notes, "Security continues to be the predominant issue, hampering reconstruction efforts on all other fronts. Crime is rampant, and, along with fears of bombings, militias' roadblocks, banditry on the highways and regular kidnappings, continues to impact Iraqis' ability to go about their lives with any semblance of normalcy."

Security problems impact all the other measures of well-being negatively. For example, jobs are scarce in the private sector and those who choose to work for foreign companies fear attacks by insurgents.

Major cities still get only sporadic electricity service and "sewage systems are worse than they were under Saddam." Education showed improvement at first but has been declining recently as kids drop out to seek extra income for their families.

Partisans of the war, especially in the U.S. government, complain that the media tell only the negative side of things, focusing on attacks, bombings and setbacks.

However, this survey of multiple media sources found that "the media [have] not been significantly more negative than other sources of information on the issues of security, governance and participation and economic opportunity.

"The media have been regularly more negative than other sources about services and social well-being issues. But in those areas, the media [are] arguably more balanced than public sources, in that [the media] tend to include descriptions of the impact of security and reports of the Iraqi perspective."

MOST VOTERS' MINDS

ARE ALREADY MADE UP

So the evidence indicates things are not going especially well in Iraq and probably worse than most Americans think.

Will this affect how people vote in November?

James Coyle, director of the Center for Global Education at Chapman University and an old State Department hand, doesn't think so. "Unless there is a tragic and overwhelming catastrophe, or peace unexpectedly breaks out," he told me, "the effect of the war has been felt already. People made up their minds some time ago about the war and how that will affect their choice of candidate."

I'm not sure. The war could still have an as yet unfelt impact on the presidential election. But you won't catch me making hard-and-fast predictions.


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